Cambridge- Deputy Chief of Mission M. Ashraf Haidari spoke in a seminar on the “Illicit Networks as a South Asia Regional Security Challenge,” as part of the US-South Asia Leader Engagement Program, co-sponsored by the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the U.S. National Defense University Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies on April 27-May 2, 2014. Other participants included senior civilian and military officials of the countries of South Asia and Central Asia.
Mr. Haidari’s country presentation focused on “Illicit Networks: The Vicious Cycle of Insecurity in Afghanistan,” which he discussed on behalf of the Afghan delegation, while his group presentation focused on “Illicit Networks: Regional Cooperation in South Asia,” in which officials of the countries of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) participated and discussed their views on the issue.
Moreover, Mr. Haidari met with a group of Harvard University post-graduate and doctorate research fellows, arranged by Marisa Porges, International Security Research Fellow, associated with the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He discussed with them the key aspects of the transition process in Afghanistan, highlighting the April 5 th presidential election as another milestone in the country’s 12-year democratic experience. “Defying repeated and ongoing terrorist attacks before and on the elections day, more than seven million people turned out to cast their vote for institutionalization of democracy and pluralism against extremism and terrorism,” noted Mr. Haidari. He added that most of Afghanistan’s 12-year achievements remained a work in progress and in need of consolidation, requiring long-term international security and development assistance.
In discussing questions from audience, he pointed out that issues of security, governance and development are inseparable and linked to a number of externalities in the Afghan context. “The success of Afghanistan’s quest for a peaceful solution to ending war and violence in the country depends on Pakistan’s sincere cooperation to allow us the kind of unfettered access we need to the Taliban leadership for a negotiated settlement,” said Mr. Haidari. Similarly, he noted that strengthening governance and rule of law in Afghanistan requires an effective international response to eliminating drugs, which continues to eat away at the country’s already weak state institutions.
At the same time, in order for the country to grow economically, international assistance should achieve a greater degree of effectiveness by focusing on the key drivers of economic growth: revitalization of agriculture/agribusiness, construction of hard and soft infrastructure, exploitation of natural resources, promotion of regional investment and trade, and so on. He noted that international assistance had so far been both inadequate and channeled through parallel structures, most of which have either wasted the much needed aid resources or spent them on pet projects without a long-term, sustainable impact.
The full text of Mr. Haidari’s remarks preceding his presentation, elucidating Afghanistan’s permissive environment, in which illicit networks operate, is below:
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Remarks by M. Ashraf Haidari
Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of Afghanistan-New Delhi
Seminar on Illicit Networks as a South Asia Regional Security Challenge
U.S.-South Asia Leader Engagement Program
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
Cambridge-Boston
APRIL 29, 2014
Lt. General Tad Oelstrom,
Dr. Robert Boggs,
Distinguished delegates,
Respected faculty,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Yesterday, we agreed among ourselves to give you a broad overview of the Afghan security context, in which illicit networks constitute one of the key challenges to stabilization of Afghanistan. We also agreed that discussing illicit networks in isolation from the other mutually reinforcing challenges wouldn’t give you a full picture of the security landscape in Afghanistan. So, we decided to write down a summary of our group discussion for presenting to you in this manner. Following our opening remarks, I will show you and discuss a few slides to help illustrate Afghanistan’s enabling environment for illicit networks. Presenting in this way should keep us focused and allow us time for a fruitful Q&A discussion.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We, members of the Afghan delegation, are grateful to the Harvard Kennedy School and the U.S. National Defense University NESA Center for inviting us to this timely seminar to discuss a topic of utmost importance to the national security of all countries represented here, including the United States.
We also wish to take this opportunity to extend the sincere gratitude of our people and Government for the enduring support we have received from the American people and Government over the past 12 years. Of course, without America’s firm commitment to addressing our two nations’ shared security concerns, Afghanistan would have not gone as far as we have. And, today, we wouldn’t be here, sitting alongside our neighbors, to discuss the challenges that confront all of us.
As President Karzai often says to the visiting U.S. Congressional delegations, we and our history will never forget America’s sacrifices in blood and treasure to continue securing Afghanistan and making the world a safer place against our common enemies: radicalism, terrorism, and organized crime. Indeed, our shared sacrifices, including those of our allies and friends, have consistently delivered the results, which we and our nation-partners desire and must consolidate on a sustainable basis.
On April 5, our people made history. Despite clear threats to the elections, Afghans crossed ethno-sectarian lines to make a loud and clear statement rejecting radicalism, terrorism, and organized crime in all their forms and manifestations. More than 7 million Afghans waited in long lines for hours, in rainy weather, to vote at over 6,200 polling centers across the country. They did so with a hardened determination to secure a future for Afghanistan where peace, pluralism, and prosperity will be institutionalized over time, with the continued support of the United States.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
You may wonder why peace remains elusive in Afghanistan, more than twelve years since the fall of the Taliban. We think that four interlocking challenges with internal, regional, transnational, and international dimensions impede our country’s stabilization and reconstruction. Each challenge facing Afghanistan feeds off the others, and together they have engendered a vicious circle that is destabilizing our country. Let me briefly discuss each challenge:
- First, we are an underdeveloped country and much of our infrastructure has been destroyed by conflict. Our new state institutions lack the basic capacity and resources to administer their mandates. These structural problems are compounded by our expanding population, 70% of which is illiterate and demand jobs that do not exist. Taken together, widespread poverty, a lack of basic services, and a demographic explosion significantly contribute to instability in Afghanistan.
- Second, it is clear that the Taliban leadership continues to receive institutional protection outside of Afghanistan. It stands to reason that without an external sanctuary, sustainable funding, weapons supplies, and intelligence support in our immediate neighborhood, the Taliban would be unable to re-consolidate their control over Afghanistan. Since 2003, the Taliban and their affiliated networks have gradually expanded their influence in the ungoverned southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan, launching daily terrorist attacks that have injured and killed thousands of our innocent people.
- Third, Afghanistan is vulnerable to transnational security threats, which mainly stem from terrorism and production and trafficking of narcotics. These security threats feed into and are fed by our internal and regional challenges. Rife poverty and weak governance, for example, are as much responsible for mass drug production in Afghanistan as is the global demand for narcotics; this is not to mention the alliance between the Taliban and drug traffickers, who exploit Afghanistan's vulnerable population to destabilize our country.
- Fourth, although the diversity of nations present in Afghanistan demonstrates international goodwill and consensus for supporting us, each contributing nation has pursued its own aid strategies, effectively bypassing coordination with each other and our Government. Therefore, a lack of strategic coordination across international military and civilian efforts to ensure aid effectiveness has so far crippled the Afghan state and left us with no capacity or resources to deliver basic services to our people.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We think that in the face of these mutually reinforcing, complex challenges facing us, Afghanistan and our international partners have a number of significant advantages, which must be fully harnessed to regain the momentum necessary to achieve long-term, institutionalized peace in our country.
Foremost among these is Afghanistan's key, untapped asset: our people, who make up one of the youngest, most energetic, and most forward-looking nations in the world. They should be supported in acquiring higher education in technical fields, and their energy and skills must be harnessed to exploit our vast natural resources, worth more than one trillion dollars, to help us develop a productive economy.
Secondly, our vital location should help us serve as a regional trade and transit hub for easy movement of goods and natural resources to meet the rising energy demands of India and China. Indeed, without this realization and utilization of Afghanistan as the heart of the New Silk Road, achieving regional economic integration will remain impossible. The recent India-China dialogues on how to protect their shared long-term interests in Afghanistan are a welcome development. The more these key regional players, including Russia, Iran and Turkey, get constructively involved in Afghanistan through investment in our virgin markets, the less space for the region's peace spoilers, whether state or their proxy non-state actors, to destabilize our country.
Finally, Afghanistan's friends and allies have gone through the learning curve, and gained invaluable experience in assisting Afghanistan effectively. Together, we have made many mistakes and learned many lessons over the past 12 years, which should be used as a strategic opportunity to avoid more of the same, and to do the right thing henceforth.
This means a firm re-commitment to bottom-up and top-down institutional capacity building in the Afghan state so that Afghans increasingly initiate, design, and implement reconstruction projects on our own. Meanwhile, the Afghan national security forces must be equipped with the necessary capabilities -- including capacity for logistics and equipment maintenance as well as adequate ground and air firepower -- to execute independent operations against conventional and unconventional enemies, including organized crime. This way, they will completely relieve international forces of the duty, which Afghans consider to be ours - to defend Afghanistan now and beyond 2014. On the whole, these vital efforts will help ensure the irreversibility of the transition process currently underway.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Our people have placed much hope and trust in the strategic partnership agreements we have signed with the United States, India, and our other allies to help address the security challenges confronting Afghanistan. But we understand that this long-term and necessary task cannot be accomplished by any one party alone. Every state in the region and beyond has a stake in the stabilization and reconstruction of Afghanistan, knowing that the effects of insecurity due to radicalism, terrorism and narcotics in one country can easily spill over to affect the rest in a globalized world. Thus, with Afghans leading the way forward, the burden of securing Afghanistan must be shared by the whole international community, both to ensure durable stability in our country and to maintain global peace and security.
Thank you.
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